Breathe into Me
by yume girl 91
Summary: "Because you are precious to me, I will protect you." he said and she believed him. Tensa ZangetsuxRukia noncon
1. Chapter 1

~Breathe into Me~

There were differences between them, she had noticed.

The two forms of Ichigo's Zanpaku-to.

The older, wiser Zangetsu whom looked out for his young wielder and the narrow-eyed uncaring younger Tensa Zangetsu whom had never revealed himself nor the extent of the power Ichigo could wield.

She had seen them.

Zangetsu hovering behind Ichigo that day on Sokyoku hill, the very image of a fierce hardened warrior. She hadn't long then to ponder the warmth radiating from the spirit before Renji had taken her away from the execution grounds. _Good...so he had finally learned the name of his sword_. She had guessed that, having felt the battles he had fought during her imprisonment within the Senzaikyu.

Many times after that, did she see the same spirit. As expected, he stood quite close to the orange-haired guardian radiating strength and self-possession that Ichigo sadly lacked. The two made a pair, the elder spirit and the younger human.

Until that is...one day she noticed something significantly different. It was during the Arrancar invasion and she was trying to free Ichigo from the sword stuck through his arm effectively pinning him down. In the space of a few seconds between the blue-haired Arrancar whom she'd had a run in with before and the doom blast near to taking her head off...

Rukia saw another.

A slender figure cloaked in head-to toe black. _Who-?_ Come to think of it, she had not seen the old man. _Could it be-?_

But then another appeared. This time of flesh and blood or however you called a Shinigami-hybrid. She was pitched aside as the blue-haired Arrancar went after the new arrival whom Ichigo called: "Shinji."

Breathless and lying on her side while the battle was fought in the sky, she closed her eyes. Willing her heart to stop its furious, frightened beat. _Fear was a weakness. She shouldn't have been afraid of death! To have been afraid even for a moment...it was_..

_'Are you hurt?'_ The voice wasn't spoken aloud, rather it was in her mind.

Deep, calm yet strange almost for the appearance of the stranger. Young he seemed, pale too. His touch was gentle though, which was why she permitted it.

"Who are you?" she asked, frowning when he didn't answer right away; his fingers sliding around the crown of her head, then lightly skimming her bruised cheek.

_'Someone whom has been watching over you for a very long time.' _The stranger murmured, the words echoing quietly in her consciousness; solemn he was in the face of everything. There were so many things she wanted to ask, her mind attempting to understand his meaning. Watching-

"But, who-" are you?

The press of his fingertips against her lips halted any further words.

He shook his head slightly, indicating _not now_.

_Why not_- she wanted to complain. Curious beyond unusual measure to know the name of the stranger whom had showed concern over her. Not that she needed to be the object of concern, her mind was quick to point out_. But still-_

"Who-" she tried again, halfway rising, feeling the complaints of her aching muscles.

He stepped back at the same moment that Ichigo's voice cut through.

"Who are you talking to, midget?"

Then, he was just _gone_.

Her head swiveled to and fro, disregarding the melting ice of Hakuren and the damage to the surrounding shops and businesses. _Where was he?_

"Oi! Earth to midget!" Ichigo called loudly, waving his good hand in her face.

"Shut up, baka!" she scowled at him, shoving his rude hand away. "You..scared _him_ away."

"Huh...?" The sub's eyebrows met. "Are you screwed in the brain or something?"

"Now, what're you babbling about?" Crossing her arms over her chest, she saw that the bowl-cut blond, the one Ichigo seemed to know; had looked their way.

"There was no one else near you! You were talking to _air!"_

* * *

She couldn't understand it.

Anything of it and it frustrated her beyond belief.

Ichigo hadn't seen anyone- _but, she just knew __he__ was real!_ She _had been_ awake- _she had felt his hand on her cheek!_ Rukia in her Gigai atop the roof of the Kurosaki clinic that night, tried to rationalize the whirl of thoughts going in and out of her head.

_She wasn't crazy...she had seen someone else on the battlefield_...

She bit her lip, folding her fingers beneath her chin. _Like before_. It didn't escape her, those previous observations on the spirit form of Ichigo's Zanpaku-to. _So, then could it be...?_

_-'Someone whom has been watching over you for a very long time.'- _

She quickly shook her head, frowning even more. _No, it couldn't __**be**_**.** Lost in her thoughts, she failed to notice the slightest disturbance as Orihime slipped into Ichigo's room below.

* * *

-TBC?

Disclaimer: don't own Bleach.

AN: This is a few months old, found it in a scraps doc box while searching for something else. Creeps off to bed. Thanks for reading

Reviews appreciated (there is a little more, but all in all, it's meant to be a short chaptered story)


	2. Chapter 2

Hours passed.

Her thoughts were ever more jumbled. With a defeated sigh, Rukia crawled back in through a window, reentering the deep stillness of the Kurosaki clinic. The beds of the twins remained conspicuously empty, she saw peering into the gloom of the small room.

As she approached her own bed, her legs felt numb. Weary with a heaviness induced by the Arrancars' attack earlier in the day. _Her near brush with death_...

She was still ashamed to think that even for a moment had she been frightened.

_Then, that stranger_...

Another sigh echoed in the cool air of the room, a shifting rustle as she slipped into bed, pulling the covers over her small, thin angular body. Staring up at the ceiling, she contemplated his touch and very soon had fallen deeply asleep.

(*)

"Rukia-sama..."

Fingertips as cool as snowflakes stroked her cheek.

She knew the voice. "Sode no Shirayuki."

The clean, sharp scent of ice surrounded her. Rukia kept her eyes closed. She had hopes still. "Will you teach me more of your beautiful dances this night, Sode no Shirayuki?"

There was a light chuckle. A breathy soft tinkle that fell like music on her ears.

"No, Rukia-sama." Sode no Shirayuki gently said, "there is...someone else whom you are to see this night."

"Who?" Her heart hammered a little more in her chest. The coldness of the frosted world did little to disguise the warmth rising to her cheeks though she didn't halfway understand the reason why.

In response, fingertips like the first touch of winter's frost laid upon her hand, guiding her forward. _Where are you taking me?_ she thought to ask, yet implicitly trusted her other half to lead her safely to the destination known to no other.

Snow crackled beneath her steps, Sode no Shirayuki made not a sound gliding beside her. Rukia felt clumsy, inept then but stayed silent, unquestioning. In time they slowed, the change in the atmosphere was palpable. Rather than the pure cleanliness like driven snow, the air was scented with burning. Charged with energy...that held a familiarness to it.

Ichigo-? Her senses deciphered like the missing key of a puzzle.

"Here she is."

Rukia opened her eyes. They had stopped beneath a skeletal tree, iced over with a slick glittering sheen. As her gaze rose higher, she discerned a darkness swirling in between the branches, boots connected to long slim legs, bent at the knee. And finally as she took in the entire sight. A man with collar-length hair and piercing eyes behind large tinted frames.

"Zangetsu..." she was aware of half-uttering, half gasping. Surprise indeed clouded her vision as Sode no Shirayuki hovered as pale wintery beauty to the side. Part of the tableau yet unacknowledged as such. The moon cutter's eyes never left her face.

Of that she was sure.

"Kuchiki..." Zangetsu murmured, before her eyes, his form rippling. Face changing. Voice softening into that of the stranger's. "...Rukia."

She stared, barely comprehending the young male that sat in place of the old man.

"My previous appearance must've confused you." He said, the hint of a smile quirking his mouth.

"You're young now!" She blurted out before even thinking about it. Sode no Shirayuki giggled quietly behind her trailing white sleeve. Rukia felt heat rush to her cheeks, indignance rising simultaneously as her small hands fisted. "Why didn't you tell me who you were?" She was ready to pummel the answer out of him even though he remained sitting several feet above her head.

"Why didn't I explain when I assumed your intelligence would enable you to figure it out..?" he questioned in quite a rhetorical manner that had her fuming mad.

"How was I supposed to figure it out!" She stomped her foot, getting a mild jolt up her calve from the frozen ground. "Ichigo-" The sub's words floated through her consciousness. Realization dawned. "He couldn't..._see_...but why?"

"Why, indeed?" The spirit jeered at least until she had palmed a ball of snow and let it fly.

His hand shot up, catching it perfectly before it had slammed with a vengeance into his chest. "Very mature, Rukia."

Reddening even more though she told herself it was only because of the cold seeping in through her thin pajamas, she stood her ground proudly as the snow clumps sifted through his fingers.

"Really..I'd had hopes we could have a decent conversation- lacking of course your punches of which Ichigo finds so incredibly painful." He drawled. She glared, planting both hands on her hips.

"Well...come down then. If you're so eager to have a conversation- then don't stay up so high!" Challenging, she had to admit his grace in leaping down...did something to her. Rukia pushed the strangeness of the sensation aside, refusing abjectly to analyze its source.

"I will leave now." Sode no Shirayuki murmured, inclining her head in respect to her wielder and then once shallowly to the other Zanpaku-to. Rukia had the distinct sensation of being prey and of the sword being a hunter. She wanted to ask Sode no Shirayuki to stay yet found no words for it barring of course sounding ridiculous.

So, the yuki-onna left; silence enveloped her and the dark-clad youth.

She disliked the quiet, forcing something, anything to come out of her mouth. "Why did you say you'd been watching me for a very long time?"

"Because it's the truth. What more do you require me to say?"

"_Why_? For instance!"

The sword seemed a little surprised at her vehemence yet even that changed to faint amusement. "In all your fiery petiteness, you are you, Kuchiki Rukia. I am indebted to you for awakening Ichigo's powers. Without meeting you, I'd have stayed in the darkness of his inner world, just hoping for the day when he would call my name. You don't understand, I'm sure how much that means to me."

The emotion in his voice was raw, thick, a tumult of feeling poured in a single rush. Rukia was willing to guess he had rarely ever spoken to anyone for any long duration of time. For some reason that thought brought sadness to her heart, little by little her anger faded.

"B-But, no matter what you say, he won't be able to live a normal life- _because of me_!" Her guilt was most overwhelming then. No matter the pretty words spoken to assuage it. In the act of turning away, she was surprised by the light hesitant touch of a cool hand on the balled fist at her side.

"You changed his world, Rukia, but you also changed my existence."

"Zanget-"

"No." He corrected patiently. "I am Tensa Zangetsu."

"That's too long." She complained. "_Tensa_ is better."

"Hmph. But, it's my name."

"_Tensa_ is too!"

"You make it sound as though I am a plaything, or a belonging."

"I am _not_!" Rukia was severely insulted he would dare to label her with actions she had not done and wouldn't do. She jabbed a finger into his chest for emphasis on her point. "You're the one who wanted to talk! You're the one for whatever reason is being idiotic now! I'm leaving-!" she snapped out haughtily, spinning on her bare heel.

Only to have thin fingers clamp down around her wrist, restraining her with little effort.

"Don't. Rukia, I'm sor-"

But, she didn't hear the rest of it; fading, falling from the snowy plain to the warm covers of her bed in the twins' room. Rukia lay there numbly blinking in the semi-darkness, attempting to collect her thoughts about the sword when her soul pager rung suddenly.

Surprised, she fished it out of her old clothes beside the bed, barely depressing the button after the fifth ring.

"H-Hello?"

"Kuchiki." Hitsugaya's cool, calm tones resounded in her ear.

"Captain Hitsugaya?"

"Yes. I'm sorry if I awoke you, however we have reason now to believe Orihime Inoue's non-reappearance is cause for suspicion of her betrayal."

-TBC

AN: thanks for reading

No flames!

Reviews loved


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